Credits: Robbie Thompson (Creator/Writer), Trey Stokes (Director), Renée O’Connor (Connie), Adam Cardon (Daryl)
Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars
Synopsis:
Single mother and third grade teacher Connie (Renée O’Connor ) wakes up
to find herself on a large spaceship traveling far away from Earth.
There, she meets up with one other person who claims to be an astronaut
from the 1950’s (Connie is from the present day). They begin to explore
the ship when they meet another woman who appears to be an injured
crewmember, but they do not know for certain because she speaks a
foreign language that neither understands. She needs them to help her
with an urgent task, but they do not understand what she wants because
of the language barrier. And things only get stranger from there as
Connie and her new companions face more mysteries about their
unexplained situation and the seemingly abandoned ship they have found
themselves imprisoned upon.Review/Commentary: Ark is a web series created and written by Robbie Thompson (who has writing credits on genre shows such as Supernatural, The Cape, Human Target, and Jericho) and directed by Trey Stokes (who has professional visual effects experience and who is also known for his Star Wars parody Pink Five). And it also stars former Xena: Warrior Princess co-lead Renee O’ Connor. The series was produced by Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah in conjunction with 60Frames Studio (a company that his since gone under) on a budget of around $50k (actually quite a hefty amount for a web series) with the hopes that it would continue as an online serial or that it might make the jump to television like Amanda Tapping’s Sanctuary.
All of this amounts to a rather enjoyable and at times impressive sci fi web series that might best be described as Lost meets The Starlost
(a short-lived 70’s Canadian TV series created by Harlan Ellison). Its
special effects and sets give it an authentic feel (some of the scenes
on the Ark are filmed on a set previously used on the Firefly series). It uses some green screen effects like those found in the Sanctuary
web series and television show, and while these look a bit cheesy at
times, they do not detract too much from overall the production. The
acting is quite good, though I had some difficulty believing that the
astronaut character was really from the 50’s. His mannerisms and
colloquialisms seemed a bit too modern day, but then that may also be
part of the mystery they are developing. In addition, Connie is way too
bad-ass for a third grade teacher, but then as the series progresses we
get the suggestion that there may be more to her than what we see. All of the
nit-picking aside, though, the series has a professional look and feel
to it and it gets off to a very promising start.The first season runs nine episodes of varying lengths from three minutes to nine. It sets up the premise, but provides little resolution as it ends on a major cliffhanger. Unfortunately, nothing more has followed since completing the initial episodes in 2009. As mentioned above, 60Frames has bowed out, but Sachs/Judah Productions still owns the property and as of an interview given back in 2010 they were hoping to continue the series either on the web or on television. I’m sure they would like to see this one follow the same path as Sanctuary which jumped from web series to a TV show that ran for four years on Syfy. And it appears that Ark has an interesting enough story that could carry it through multiple seasons. It would theoretically be a good fit for Syfy except for the fact that they now seem to prefer their “sci fi lite” shows such as Warehouse 13, Haven, and Being Human. It would also be a good one for Netflix to pick up, seeing as they want to expand on their original programming. And while $50k may be a lot for a web series that runs around 45 minutes total, that’s nothing for a television episode of the same length. Whether they could stay in that budget is questionable, but this one could still probably be produced on an economical basis. And it’s definitely a production that sci fi fans should check out and lend their support to in hopes that it could at least get a second season as a web series.
Links: The entire first season of Ark is available for viewing on Hulu.com at this link. It appears that the series is exclusive to Hulu at this point and it also apparently does not have any sort of official website that I can find. The producers should probably think about putting together something along those lines and perhaps try to engage sci fi fandom through the various online forums and social sites or a Kickstarter campaign. That has proved quite fruitful for webs series like Pioneer One and L5 and can help develop some support for Ark and possibly lead to a continuation of the series. Because I for one would like to see this story continue.
Watch Ark Season 1 on Hulu.com
i adore Renee O'connor.Would support anything she does.
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